Daniel Walbidi

57 Career Overall Rank

- 2018 Market Rank

Born: 0

Region:
Kimberley, WA

Market Analysis

Daniel Walbidi, is an artist of immense talent who was the driving force behind the burgeoning art movement at Bidyadanga in Western Australia's northern coastal region. He was just 17 years of age when he first approached Broome gallery owner, Emily Rohr, with the idea of starting a painting group. His elders included Weaver Jack, Jan Billycan and Alma Weibou, all artists who had been pushed toward the coastal mission of La Grange as severe drought and encroaching mining pushed his Yulparija countrymen coastwards.

Walbidi was the 28th most successful artist in 2010, the first year in which his works first appeared at auction. Six works were offered that year and all six found willing buyers. And while only three appeared the following year he still had a 100 percent success rate after all 3 sold for a total value of $114,840. The highest two of these were still his record prices at auction in 2015 at which time his success rate was still a very impressive 88% based on the 18 offerings recorded at public auction. Kirriwirri sold for $51,240 at the Mossgreen sale of the estate of Anne Lewis AO, and Winpa, 2007 achieved $41,800 in Sotheby's Important Aboriginal and Oceanic Art Sale.

The AIAM100 index for any artist is discounted until that artist has reached 20 secondary market offerings. For this reason, in spite of Daniel's phenominal sucess since 2010, and the fact that his average price was a very healthy $21,355, he was still listed as the 66th most successful artist of the movement. By the end of 2016 however, his offerings had transcended the 20 work threashold and, as excected, his ranking jumped (see the section on Overcoming Anomolies, in the About section of this Web site). In addition, a new record price was achieved in 2016 when Kirriwirri, 2013 sold at Deautscher & Hackett for $79,300 against a pre-sale estimate of $30,000-50,000. The same auction hosue established his new 3rd highest record in their subsequent sale of the USA based Lucso Family Collection andf Walbidi finished as the 19th most successful artist that year with 4 or 5 works sold for an average price of $38,430. It was enough to propel him 11 places higher in the rankings to be the 55th most successful artist of the entire movement. Not bad for an artist whose work first appeared at auction as late as 2010. Collectors take note. Here is an artist moving up the charts with a bullet.

Emily Rohr has had a waiting list for Daniel Walbidi's work ever since his first appearences in exhibitons. At the time of his stellar sales in 2011 it was reputed to have been more than 50 collectors long. While thye appeareance of works on the secondary market should take the heat out of primary market interest to some extent, expect good works by this artist to continue to fetch a premium whenever they appear for sale. He is an exceptional talent and his paintings are destined to become one of the most sought after by any living artist.

Profile

“Art is our voice now” says Daniel Walbidi, a young man of impressive creative power.(McManus, 2008) Born in the remote West Australian community of Bidyadanga (250 km south of Broome) in 1982, he grew up listening to the songs and stories of his elders and, encouraged by his high-school art teacher, revealed a natural talent for their visual rendition. He has become the driving force behind a burgeoning art movement that now provides much of the community’s revenue and, in the wider art world, is their ‘keenly collected star’. (Rothwell, 2008)

In 1999 he approached Broome gallery owner, Emily Rohr, with the idea of starting a painting group. He recognized the need to paint, not only in himself but also amongst his elders, who carried compelling memories of traditional knowledge and the loss of their desert homelands. Severe drought and encroaching mining and grazing developments during the 1960’s had pushed the Yulparija people coastwards. Along with several other desert tribes, they found refuge at Le Grange Mission and settled amongst the Karajarri, the saltwater estuary dwellers at Bidyadanga. In 2002, the Karajarri won a land claim that brought the different strands of cultural identity within the melded community to the fore. With Walbidi at the helm, the Yulparija ‘way of seeing’ took on a new impetus. Sell out shows resulted in Melbourne and Sydney, with some of the seventy and eighty year old leading Bidyadanga artists referring to the determined Walbidi as ‘young-boss’.

Accompanied by a film-maker David Batty, the painting group journeyed to visit their long missed ancestral lands. (Desert Heart, Rebel Films, 2008) Walbidi’s meticulously detailed and abstracted topographies, of once only-imagined places and journeys, noticeably relaxed after this real life encounter. He realized the power and depth of his indigenous inheritance. It is, he said, “…a part of myself. Its not just a story, it’s a living thing.” (Rothwell, 2008) He describes the desert ochres as the warm centre while the coastal turquoise blues and greens provide a contrasting exuberance of life and movement, using familiar yet always striking motifs. Though concerned to keep his culture alive, Walbidi is also inspired by the modern world and contemporary art practises, particularly after a recent trip to London. “We still paint the land,” he says, “but in an evolving way.”